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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591101">We Were All We Needed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad'>TooGoodToBeBad</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst in my Felannie? What's wrong with me?, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Garreg Mach Monastery (Fire Emblem), Just not Crimson Flower that's not canon, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Church Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Game(s), You can pretend it's Verdant Wind if you want, silver snow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:29:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Her chest tightened at the sight of him so close to her but so distant. She didn’t know how to reach him, not this time.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“I know what you want from me, Annette. And if I had it to give, I would give it to you in a heartbeat. But I don’t know if I can be the kind of person you need me to be. I’m not cut out for the life you want for us.”</em>
</p><p>Felix tries not to fall apart at the monastery, and Annette tries to put him back together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>We Were All We Needed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not necessarily a sequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26951047">The Definition of Not-Leaving</a> but you can pretend it is if you want.</p><p>Here's the angsty Felannie fic that no one asked for but I wrote anyway.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Annette could feel the frown on her face deepen as she watched Felix easily sidestep another student’s incoming attack and gently whack him with the flat of his wooden training blade. His amber eyes glinted with that old hunger she’d seen before - a vigor that sustained him on the battlefield. To see it directed against her students was perhaps more than a little disconcerting, but she was more than willing to write it off as Felix being passionate about what he did.</p><p>“And now you’re dead,” he said flatly before flourishing the training blade and sheathing it back into its scabbard. As the last student shuffled back to his spot in the somewhat organized crowd gathered around the courtyard, Felix began to speak. “Well, you’re all still atrocious, which is a big step up from <em> dogshit</em>, which is where we were just a few months ago. Who knows, maybe by the time you graduate some of you will be able to hold a weapon without accidentally decapitating yourselves and the unfortunate bastards standing next to you.”</p><p>She was definitely frowning now, and her brow furrowed as she watched Felix flippantly carry on with his lecture. </p><p>“I will say this - you guys are better than Professor Linhardt’s class. Hell, I’d even say you’re even better than Professor Linhardt himself, no doubt thanks to the tutelage of Professor Annette. You’re all dismissed. Go put the swords back on the racks and eat your vegetables or whatever.”</p><p>As the students began to disperse and murmur amongst themselves, she pushed past the throng and strode towards him with purpose. “Professor Felix, might I have a word?” she asked.</p><p>“You may have several,” he replied, seemingly unfazed by the angry scowl on her face.</p><p>She took a deep breath to calm herself. “First off, what have I told you about watching your language in front of my students?”</p><p>“To watch my language in front of your students. Sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t you want your students to learn anything, Felix?” she huffed indignantly and folded her arms across her chest.</p><p>“I guess so? It’s what I’m paid to do,” he shrugged listlessly.</p><p>“How can you expect them to learn when you’re so harsh on them?” she sputtered angrily, and her words were accompanied by an angry stomp that kicked up a cloud of dust on the training ground floor.</p><p>“The world is harsh,” he replied crossly as he undid his hair tie and let his dark hair fall and frame the sharp angles of his face. “These kids should be thankful that the worst they’ll experience is me saying that they’re terrible, as opposed to dying some useless, vainglorious death on some battlefield somewhere.”</p><p>“The world has changed,” she retorted. “Thanks to us, in case you’ve forgotten.”</p><p>“Well, what do you want me to do? Go easy on them?” he scoffed and turned away from her to return his sword to the weapon rack.</p><p>“I’m just saying-”</p><p>He turned back to her with a foreign glassiness in his eyes. “They never went easy on me!” he snarled at her, his voice rough and low. “And they’d never forgive me if I went easy on them.”</p><p>She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice, and she watched in shock as he stared numbly at his palms, seemingly stunned at his sudden outburst. “Felix,” her voice was soft and gentle now. “Who are <em> they</em>?”</p><p>In response, he shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“Felix-”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter!” his voice was a caustic whisper now, harsh and biting. “Please just drop it, Annette.”</p><p>She reached out to take his hand in hers, to bring her closer to him. “Do you need to talk about it?’</p><p>He pulled his hand away from her and took a few hesitant steps back. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he breathed as he turned his back on her. “You should go now. The dining hall’s serving that fish dish you like.”</p><p>Before she could say anything else, he walked away from her. “Please go, Annette,” he said.</p><p>With tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, she turned on her heel and ran out of the training grounds. Her footsteps rang out as her boots tapped against the dusty ground and stone steps, and there was a haunting and uncertain finality that shook her to her core when the heavy doors clicked shut behind her.</p><hr/><p>The pitter patter of footsteps in her otherwise empty classroom caused Annette to look up from her desk. One of Bernadetta’s students (his name was Roald or something) dashed his way towards her desk. “Professor Annette!” he called out. “I’m so sorry to bother you like this.”</p><p>“Oh, it’s quite alright, Roald,” she put her quill down and gave him a bright smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes; she hadn't stopped thinking of her earlier conversation with Felix. “How can I help you?”</p><p>“Do you know where Professor Felix is?” he squeaked.</p><p>“Roald, we all know that Professor Felix only ever really stays in one place.”</p><p>“Yeah, but he’s not there right now.”</p><p>Annette frowned and got up from her seat. “Maybe he’s just eating, or he went to the bathroom or something.”</p><p>“Normally I’d be inclined to agree with you, Professor, but it’s been an hour since our session with him was supposed to start, and he hasn’t been seen since.”</p><p>Her heart stopped for a moment. Felix followed his schedule almost religiously, so to hear that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be left a dark uneasiness clinging to her skin and crawling down her spine. “A-are you sure?” she stuttered.</p><p>Roald nodded. “That’s why Professor Bernadetta sent me to ask you. Maybe he-”</p><p>“He didn’t,” she said softly and began to make her way towards the door. “Excuse me, I have to go.”</p><p>“Professor, wait!” Roald cried out, but his voice was lost in the rush of blood in her ears and the erratic thumping in her chest.</p><p>Felix was gone.</p><p>A quick check of both his room and hers revealed nothing, and no one in the dining hall had seen him enter. Annette’s heart was in her throat now. Everywhere she searched, from the cathedral to the stables to to the knight’s hall, she came up with nothing. Bile crawled up her throat and coated her tongue at the mere thought that Felix could actually be gone.</p><p>After a trip to the fishing pond proved fruitless, Annette was all but ready to give up and maybe tell Seteth that a faculty member had actually run away. She began to make the trudge back towards the offices when she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the greenhouse door was left ajar. The students generally avoided the greenhouse (ever since Bernadetta started taking care of those carnivorous plants), so a treacherous spark of hope ignited in her chest at the notion that Felix might be in there. The door creaked open when she pushed against it, and the stale and heavy air that greeted her felt almost morbid, like she was walking into a funeral.</p><p>That was where she found him - seated on the floor and looking at nothing in particular.</p><p>“Felix,” her voice was surprisingly even and steady despite the way her heart weighed her down like an anchor.</p><p>“Annette,” he spared her a glance, and his voice was hazy and distant. </p><p>Something heavy settled in the pit of her stomach, and she gathered her skirt and took a seat beside him on the greenhouse floor. “Your students were looking for you when you vanished from the training grounds.”</p><p>His amber eyes blinked slowly, and there was an unfamiliar faraway look to them, almost as if he couldn’t see her. “I know,” he said slowly.</p><p>Her mouth twisted in a tiny frown. Felix had always been tough to read, but now she wasn’t even sure if she could reach him. He’d stopped being so guarded with her, and to see him hiding behind walls she thought she’d already torn down stung more than little. “Are you okay?” she pressed on.</p><p>“No. I’m not.”</p><p>Each word was another painful barb that hooked deep into her soul and stabbed at her. It was a new kind of heartbreaking for her, to see him sink like this without a clue how to fix him. It reminded her of her father, shut off from the world and unwilling to let anyone in. Unpleasant memories came to life behind her eyes - memories of rejection and an inability to reach out to someone she loved and needed in her life. “Please, Felix,” she pleaded helplessly. “Please talk to me. Don’t push me away.”</p><p>“Do you know,” his voice was soft and hushed, still heavy with somber gravity. “Do you know what day it is today?”</p><p>“It’s the 5th of Garland Moon.”</p><p>“It’s Sylvain’s birthday.”</p><p>A deep and biting iciness rushed over her and inched its way down her spine. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth, and the eerie silence between them almost felt palpable, tangible, with the way it pressed down on her.</p><p>“And he’s dead. Has been, for a while now. So are Ingrid and the boar,” he said and turned his gaze towards the overgrown flowers before him. “I didn’t even say goodbye when I left the Kingdom. Never did. I guess life’s funny like that.”</p><p>Annette nodded her head slowly, the words she so desperately needed escaping her. </p><p>“Sometimes I start thinking, even… especially when I don’t want to,” he continued. “About them. Where their place would be in this new world we’ve built. Where they would be if they didn’t die for a lost cause at Gronder. And every single time, I end up asking myself the exact same question - ‘where is <em> my </em>place in this world?’ After all, I’m the one who survived, not them, but I’m the one who feels lost. Where do I belong?”</p><p><em> Here with me</em>, the thought danced dangerously in her mind. <em> Nowhere else</em>. Even as she thought them, the words rang hollow within her. She didn’t know how she’d fooled herself into thinking that Felix would stay at the monastery with her for the rest of his days and pretend to be happy for her sake. </p><p>“Some days I don’t even think it’s here with you,” he breathed before looking at her again, a deep melancholy set in his eyes. “You told me we were all we needed, Annette.”</p><p>A pitiful sob escaped her as tears stung at the corners of her eyes. “I did, Felix.”</p><p>“So why doesn’t it feel like it?”</p><p>She shut her eyes to avoid looking the truth straight on. “I… I don’t know,” her voice faltered.</p><p>A friendly, welcome warmth wrapped itself around her hand, and she could feel Felix’s fingers slot themselves in between hers. “Please look at me,” he said softly.</p><p>She forced her eyes open and wiped away the tears blurring her vision. Her chest tightened at the sight of him so close to her but so distant. She didn’t know how to reach him, not this time.</p><p>“I know what you want from me, Annette. And if I had it to give, I would give it to you in a heartbeat. But I don’t know if I can be the kind of person you need me to be. I’m not cut out for the life you want for us.”</p><p>She choked back another cry before falling against him and wrapping him in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry, Felix,” she sobbed against the crook of his neck. “I… I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe that you could be happy with me.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” the quiver in his voice was unmistakable now. “It’s mine for believing you.”</p><p>Her voice was coming apart at the edges now, splintering under the weight of dangerous longing. “Do you hate me, Felix?”</p><p>“I don’t; I could never,” he said before letting go and disentangling himself from her. “Goddess knows it would be easier if I could. It would make it so much easier for me to just pack up and leave, to travel to some faraway place and leave everything and everyone I know behind.”</p><p>His gloved hand brushed against her cheek and wiped the tears streaming down her face. Despite the dull ache deep within her, the warmth from his fingertips lingered under her doleful blue eyes. “Will you leave?” she whispered.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he admitted, and when she crashed against him again, he opened his arms to her and held her close to him. She could feel his heartbeat in his chest, its steady rhythm a constant to keep her from spiraling. His fingers in her hair and his arms around her felt like shelter from the storm within. “I suppose that’s why I keep coming back to the greenhouse.”</p><p>She looked up to face him, a dangerous, reckless curiosity nagging at her mind. “What do you mean?” she asked.</p><p>A wistful smile formed on his face, and an uneasy pang wracked her heart at the sight of it. “The greenhouse reminds me of why I stay - it reminds me of you. You were my saving grace, once upon a time. You might still be.”</p><p>Her breath caught in her throat, unable to process the sickly sweet sentimentality that dripped off his words. For a moment, something warm coursed through her veins at the sound of his honesty, only for it to turn to ice. </p><p>“This place reminds me of a simpler time,” he continued while she listened, holding on to his every word like precious gold. “A time when I knew what I wanted to do with myself, a time when I had a purpose. A time when something as simple as a song was more than enough to make me feel happy.”</p><p>She tightened her grip around him as if she was starving for the familiarity of his embrace. “I can’t keep you here forever, can I?”</p><p>A heavy, uncertain pause filled the air. “There might come a day where this greenhouse is not enough.”</p><p>“But can you promise that you’ll still be here in the morning?”</p><p>“You know I can’t make that promise,” his voice was hushed now, and his fingers idly tangled themselves in loose locks of her bright orange hair. “Don’t hurt yourself like that, Annette. You’re much too bright, much too hopeful for that.”</p><p>Another sob clawed its way out of her throat, and she could feel his grip on her tighten while her own arms fell uselessly to her sides. “I don’t want to do this to you, Annette,” he said. “But I don’t know if I can keep doing whatever it is I’m doing now. I feel so caged and restless in this place.”</p><p>She nodded glumly and gasped for air. She was breathing him in now - desperate to cling on to what little she could of a simple thing that was no longer promised to her. “If you ever leave, at least have the courtesy to let me know before you do. It would be better than not knowing.”</p><p>The nod of his head was almost imperceptible, but the tiny reassurance was almost good enough for her. She nuzzled her face against his neck and began to hum to herself. It was a simple ditty her mother taught her ages ago, but it was never one she’d had any reason to sing. It was, after all, a terribly dismal song about heartache and loss.</p><p>“That’s a new one,” he breathed. “I like that one.”</p><p>“I don’t, not too much,” she replied softly. “It’s a sad song, meant for saying goodbye to the people you love.”</p><p>He paused, and her words hung in the air like a spell. “Then I hope you never have to sing it again.”</p><p>She could feel his heart beating in his chest, in time with hers, and her arms snaked their way around him one more time. The two of them sat there on the greenhouse floor in a tangled mess. “Not today, please, Felix.”</p><p>“Not today,” he assured her.</p><p>It was more than enough for her. It had to be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! Feedback and comments are appreciated!</p><p>This was new for me since pretty much everything I write with these two is silly fun (with the exception of 2 or so pieces), so I wanted to challenge myself. I hope Felix in particular comes off okay in this, since it's a bit challenging to have him be so emotional. </p><p>I hope you guys liked this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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